The Frailest Leaves Of Me
by Keung Liu
Summary: Francis Bonnefoy and Matthew Williams are two scientists who have the ability to recreate a dying person's entire life by giving them artificial memories and granting them a single moment of utter bliss before they pass away. But there's always that one client who stands out from the rest…
1. Eighty-Three (P1)

**Warnings:** Please check my profile for a list of warnings if you need them.

* * *

His name was Arthur F. Kirkland. The F, apparently, stood for _fucking filthy_ rich.

Francis didn't know what else Matthew had been expecting. After all, Sigmund Corp. had a reputation in this country as the only proprietor with the real legal means to inject another human being's head with false memories; it was only to be expected that all their clients would have enough money to throw around for six seconds (or so) of false happiness before kicking the bucket. He told him so.

"B-but," Matthew stammered, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose anxiously, "I hadn't expected _this _kind of wealth from our patients. I was thinking more along the lines of Don Draper's affluence; less corporate-lawyer-at-top-law-firm, less _I just discovered the cure to the common cold_."

"Don't be absurd," Francis snorted, tucking Mr. Kirkland's files inside his suit jacket and pulling out a cigarette. "Don Draper is actually ridiculously well-off." He thought he would regret having their youngest employee tag along with him on this mission, but _nah_. The look on Matthew William's face when they pulled up in front of the private estate was irreplaceable.

It turned out that the only living resident in the mansion besides the owner was a German chauffeur named Ludwig Beilschmidt and a male housekeeper named Feliciano Vargas. Their front gate wasn't even locked, and nobody had escorted them to the entrance. Which basically meant that Matthew had to drag the heavy equipment the whole way there.

Their patient was apparently not as well-off as he seemed.

"Mr. Kirkland would like to welcome you to his home," Ludwig said after introducing himself and the housekeeper. "Unfortunately, as he is confined to his bed at the moment, he cannot greet you personally. I will be speaking on his behalf. Please do not smoke in here."

Matthew shot Francis a dirty look, and Francis sullenly put his cigarette out. It was just a minor habit he'd picked up during his travels…twelve or so years ago. A twelve-year-old habit that he couldn't get rid of fast enough, obviously.

"It's a pleasure, Mr. Beilschmidt, Mr. Vargas, " Francis said, shaking the other two people's hands. "My name is Francis Bonnefoy, and this is my junior associate, Matthew Williams.

"I presume you know why we're here," Matthew said politely.

Ludwig gave what could only be the gross approximation of a tight-lipped smile. The man's bone structure looked as though it had never been built to smile. Francis thought that Matthew probably felt a little sorry for him.

"Of course we do. Mr. Kirkland signed a contract with Sigmund Corp. almost thirty years ago. He left the exact specifications of his final wish in our contract should he become incapacitated or lose his ability to communicate in any way. We know _exactly_ why you're here."

"We've only worked for Mr. Kirkland for two years now, but we've become very fond of him," Feliciano piped up. "Please take good care of him, and do your best to fulfill his dream!"

"We're trained professionals," Matthew said comfortingly. "Don't worry; it's our job."

With the formalities out of the way, and all the paperwork signed and agreed upon, Ludwig finally handed Francis and Matthew the necessary documents they'd need in order to see what exactly they'd be doing for Arthur Kirkland. Ludwig explained that Arthur was 83 and had been beaten into unconsciousness a day ago by some self-loathing thugs who were now sitting in a jail cell. He was on life support; they had about three days before he'd be taken off it (as stated in their agreement). Ludwig helped them carry their machinery up the stairs, and left it in front of Mr. Kirkland's shut door before respectfully bowing out of the way and leaving.

Then it was just Francis and Matthew and a wrinkled envelope between them that was rippling at the seams with old hope.

"This anticipation is killing me," Matthew said accidentally before paling when he realized the inappropriateness of his words. "Oops —"

"Don't beat yourself up too much over it," Francis responded.

The two shared a _really, now?_ glance, but Francis suspected that Matthew was genuinely too nervous to find anything funny at the moment. After all, this was the boy's first official mission. Matthew was only twenty-one; he was a local prodigy who'd earned his undergraduate degree at the University of Chicago when he was eighteen and joined Sigmund Corp. a year and a half after that. Francis hadn't been half the material Matthew was when he was that age.

So he wordlessly put his hand on Matthew's shoulder and smiled a smile that was _hopefully_ encouraging.

They wiggled the door handles together and pushed the doors open. Francis entered first; Matthew struggled with the equipment.

The first thing he noticed was the emptiness of the room as a whole. Despite the grandness of the house, despite the wooden carvings and marble sculptures and larger-than-life portraits that hung on the walls, this room felt bare and hollow. There was no furniture in it besides the king-sized bed in its center, and even then the bed seemed unremarkable and plain.

Old man Arthur Kirkland was sleeping soundly in it with the sheets pulled up around his ears. He was hooked up to a small machine that monitored his heart activity; it gave eerie _beep_s periodically to let the two agents know that yes, that statue-calm figure still had life in him. The old man's wounds had been addressed meticulously, but even so his face looked completely beat up and disproportioned. Some blood leaked out of the stitches on his forehead and Matthew wiped it away with his sleeve as Francis sniffed and looked on in disdain.

"All alone in such a giant mansion with nobody else really around," Matthew said softly. "That's got to be the saddest thing I've ever heard. What kind of sickos do you think would jump a helpless old man for his wallet? They must have been desperate."

"What _I _want to know is what he could possibly want, with all the money he has," Francis said before tearing open the envelope. Two loose pieces of paper fell to the ground; Matthew bent to pick them up while Francis read the one in his hand.

"_To whom it may concern in Sigmund Corp.,_

"_I am, as you may already know, on my last leg of life. From the moment I signed up for a memory alteration, I've ached, waiting for this to finally happen to me. The permanent distortion of one's memory is too damaging an ordeal to attempt on a young, healthy person with several more years ahead of him, so you say; you will only ever recreate the memories of those who are close to death. So I have been wishing my near-death for a very long time now._

"_It is with great optimism and trepidation that I hand my life over to you. Please serve it well; it is a life long-lived, with many regrets and precious few moments of true happiness. It also means nothing to me. I do not want it._

"_I want a life where I'm married. There was a man in my life whom I can still firmly say I love. He died the week before I contacted you, three decades ago, and we never sealed any sort of official deal. I think I would only be able to rest in peace if I'm under the pretense that we got married the year after he proposed and we proceeded to spend the rest of our lives together in quiet domesticity. That's all, really. His name is Alfred F. Jones._

"_Thank you so much — and I wish you the best of luck. _

"_Kindest regards,_

"_Arthur Kirkland." _

"My mum always told me you can't buy love with money," Matthew said, before passing the two pieces of paper he'd picked up over to Francis. Francis gave him the letter in return.

"They were already _in_ love; they'd just never officially tied the ribbon."

"It's just an expression," Matthew said, ears reddening, and Francis cast him a fond look.

The first paper he was holding was a few particulars on what Arthur could remember from the engagement — the point at which he wanted his memory to start being altered. _We went to the Met. He knew how much I loved Byzantine art. _It was useless to Francis — they could work without this information — but he appreciated the extra effort regardless.

The second paper was an old black-and-white printed photograph of a young adult in a bomber jacket. He had permanent laugh lines and a boyish grin that lit up the entire picture and glittering bright eyes that promised a lifetime of what-have-yous. There was nothing about the picture that didn't scream hot mess, from his mussed hair to his crooked frameless glasses to his lopsided salute. Alfred F. Jones had an inherent childish charm to him that Francis was sure anyone could come to love if given the chance.

Matthew was already finished hooking the machines to the outlets by the time Francis pulled his eyes away from the photograph. He offered Francis one of the two headsets, and both of them sat on the edge of the bed (being careful not to touch the dozing old man). Matthew made a gesture that seemed like he was grabbing for Francis' arm, but thought better of it at the last second and pulled away.

Francis took Matthew's hand anyway. They squeezed; Matthew's hand was hot and sweaty.

"Are you ready?" he whispered to his associate. Matthew only gave him the slightest of nods, his eyes tightly shut.

Francis fired up the machine and felt the familiar hum of static flow not unpleasantly into his ears. He gave Arthur Kirkland's heart monitor one last glance; it went _beep…beep…beep _in response. He also gave Arthur Kirkland himself one last glance, perhaps as a raised glass to reality. Francis had never been the kind of man who approved of the alteration of memories to create an entirely new, false persona for oneself when the real world had so much more going for it.

Arthur Kirkland soundly slept on. From this close proximity, Francis could count his freckles. But otherwise, the old man looked nothing short of ordinary.

"Don't worry; there's actually not that much to it," Francis promised Matthew. "It's all a lot easier than you think it is."

Those last words would be words he'd come to regret for a long time.

* * *

In case you haven't already figured it out, the premise of this story is based on Kan Gao's _To The Moon_ game. It's an incredibly heartbreaking game that's definitely worth the few hours it takes to complete. I highly, highly recommend it to anyone with some spare time.

That said, I will try my best not to spoil anything for _To The Moon _in here for those who have not yet played it.

Thanks for reading!


	2. Eighty-Three (P2)

First stop - Age 83

(A few days before the incident)

* * *

"Nothing changed."

"Give it a moment," Francis replied, eyes shut, really meaning that _he_ needed a moment. Time-traveling as a wavelength into the multidimensional expanse of a person's memory had always taken a heavier toll on him than it did on his partners. He wasn't as young and able-bodied as he used to be.

"Francis, it didn't work," Matthew griped moodily, his voice tinged with an edge of disappointment. "Oh —! Never mind. Mr. Kirkland's not here anymore."

Francis slowly opened his eyes. Sure enough, the bed they were sitting on was unoccupied by their client. "The first stop is always like this," Francis explained. "At the moment, we're only two or three days before Arthur falls unconscious. That's the farthest our machine can bring us back in time without the help of a memento. We'll just stick around long enough to ask Arthur some questions and then grab a relic we can use to help us take further leaps back. The machine knows exactly what it's doing, don't worry. It has a tag on our mind and tracks everything that's going on."

"I like to think that George Orwell would be proud of us, what with how far we've come."

"Oh, it's a beautiful thing, the destruction of words," Francis lamented. Faced with Matthew's blank stare, he pulled out a cigarette and shrugged. "What? It's my favourite quote from 1984."

Matthew removed his headset and gave Francis a _really, now? _look, probably judging him silently for being one of the few Sigmund Corp. employees who had actually been alive in 1984 and still hadn't been given a senior title yet. To be honest, Francis secretly just enjoyed the company of his younger co-workers and liked working in the field with them.

Actually, it wasn't that big of a secret. Everybody knew that Francis was a pervert.

"You know you can't smoke in here," Matthew said (judging him).

"We're invisible. Probably just a stream of binary numbers. Who's going to tell me off? You?"

"You know I'm not afraid of you, old man."

"It's comforting to see you drop your polite facade when you're not around other people."

The two exited Mr. Kirkland's bedroom to look for him, but not before remembering to turn off their visibility. The house, on a closer examination, had not been given a good cleaning in a while; Matthew sneezed two or three times as they passed through the antiquated hallways that homed entire coats of dust. He wiped his nose miserably on his sleeves and muttered remorseful apologies the entire way.

"Allergies?" Francis said sympathetically.

"They get worse with every passing summer."

"My nephew is allergic to just about every kind of food imaginable," Francis mused. "As a self-taught aspiring chef, I've had to be creative in the past."

"That's great," Matthew mumbled. "I don't suppose you can be creative and magic all this dust away?"

"But that would be Mr. Vargas' job, and I'd hate to run him out of business." As if on cue, Feliciano Vargas bounced past them, waving a cloth wildly about that did nothing but chase more dust into the air. He skipped right by them, completely oblivious of their presence and bringing waves of dust clouds trailing behind him like the plague. Francis finally turned off the machine's interactivity to put Matthew out of his misery.

"Ah, the technological advancements we've made in the past decade," Francis said. "I don't ever want any of my memories to be altered, but I wouldn't mind living in a memory itself if it meant I could control every variable around me." He handed Matthew a tissue he found in one of the rooms (they were checking every one). "So, crime shows. Love 'em or hate 'em?"

After a thorough check of the entire mansion (which they both agreed was unnecessarily colossal for one bent-over little man and his two house mates) and an in-depth discussion on their favourite _Law & Order_ series (Francis' was the original, and Matthew's was SVU, but either way Francis had only watched some eighty episodes in the entire franchise whereas Matthew was completely caught up with every episode and was a much bigger geek than he was), they both concluded that Mr. Kirkland was outside.

As it so happened, Mr. Kirkland was nowhere on the property at all.

"We do have _time_, right?" Matthew asked worriedly as Francis checked Kirkland's files for any clues as to where their client might wander off to in his spare time.

"In here, we can reboot the memory whenever we want. But time is always passing in the outside world, and at max, we only have some seventy-two hours to fulfill his wish of getting married. That's enough time," he said, seeing Matthew's worried face. "Don't worry. But you should probably start getting used to pulling all-nighters, or at the _most_ running on less than three hours of sleep every day."

Mr. Kirkland's files said that he almost _never _went outside. In fact, he hadn't gone outside for the past decade due to "old-people problems" (as Francis had put it bluntly) and nowhere did it say that he was out during the couple days before he got jumped…

Unless this _was_ the memory where he got jumped.

"Should we reboot it?" Matthew asked.

"No, I'd rather not waste time…to allow for unprecedented delays."

"Should we go to…" Matthew pointed his finger at the name of the location on the files. "_Canterbury Heights_, park, 21:06?"

"Ah, what a chore," Francis cried, throwing his cigarette on the ground and crushing it underfoot. "I _definitely_ don't get paid enough for this."

"You _could_ get paid more," Matthew said, picking up Francis' cigarette butt and tossing it into a nearby trash can, "if you'd let Mr. Edelstein promote you."

"But then I wouldn't get to work with cute, fresh-out-of-grad-school newbies like yourself, and where's the fun in that?"

Matthew rolled his eyes, turned on their visibility and interactivity, and signaled for a cab.

Twenty minutes later, they were strolling through the darkened park, wondering what on earth could have prompted a rich man who hadn't stepped foot outside his home for ten years to go wandering outside alone in the night. Francis felt more bad-ass than he usually did, particularly because of the _Law & Order_ conversation he'd just had. He even told Matthew to walk quietly so that they could act like they were genuine government agents. He was childish like that.

Matthew tripped and fell flat on his face. Twice. He couldn't walk quietly to save his life. He was clumsy like that.

"I think I cracked my glasses," Matthew whispered for the thousandth time that night as he squinted at his lens, trying to discern any sign of wear.

Francis, meanwhile, squinted at the figure approaching them from the path. "Shh!" he said. "That's Arthur."

Matthew slipped on his glasses. "Are you sure?"

"Positive. What time is it?"

"20:33."

"Good. Then we still have time before he's supposed to get jumped. We'll ask him some questions, find an important memento to him, and then get out of here."

"Wait, _what_?" Matthew grabbed Francis' sleeve, which made Francis make a 'eeurgh' sound at having his sweater touched by a grubby first-year associate. "We're just going to _leave_ him, even though we know what's going to happen? If we can change his memories, why can't we change this one, too?"

"Because it won't matter in the end," Francis snapped. "And it's not in our contract. We're just here to do our job. Don't get sentimental." With an afterthought, in case Matthew's feelings got hurt, Francis quickly added, "My dear."

Matthew let go of Francis, but there was something in his eyes that told him he was not standing down on this. "He's a helpless old man," Matthew said in a voice that cracked.

"Matthew, Matt, what does it even matter? They're just memories. In real life, he's still going to die either way. Besides, we never know if him getting married to this Alfred character will change the rest of his life — perhaps events leading up to this moment will never happen at all, and Arthur never gets attacked by some group of kids. We're only here to make sure he gets married — that's _it_. The rest of his life is up to him to create."

Francis heard Matthew breathe in and out of his nose shakily. Of course, it wasn't like Francis was entirely heartless; he'd just been in this business for much too long to worry about the minor details. There'd been hundreds of missions before this. He hadn't felt like he'd needed to do more than his client requested since his very first mission.

It was too bad they couldn't discuss it further, though, because by then Arthur Kirkland had already reached them, and Francis was instinctively walking towards him. "Mr. Kirkland?" he called.

The hobbling figure stopped in his stroll to look at them. "What do you want?"

If Francis hadn't been surprised by the other's face (which he wasn't; Kirkland had one of the most normal-looking old faces Francis had ever the displeasure to see — besides his unfortunately large eyebrows), he was certainly surprised upon hearing his voice. It was simultaneously elderly and heavy, slow and sad, and thick and hoarse at the same time — but above all these traits, it featured an _incredibly _sharp British accent. The only thing that could have possibly matched the distinctness of that accent was Francis' own, which was semi-faked (he'd picked it up when he spent three years in Paris drinking and sleeping around, and it never really left him).

"I presume you've heard of the Sigmund Agency of Life Generation."

For a moment, Kirkland didn't answer. Then there was something in his face that positively _lit up_ — he didn't smile, but he did walk towards them with his hand outstretched, and it was the fastest Francis had ever seen an old person move.

"Ah, yes — of course. Of course I've heard of you. It's been thirty years since I've contacted you and I've never forgotten. Can I do anything for you? Are you hear to discuss the terms of my wish with me?"

"In a way, yes." Francis introduced himself and Matthew and they shook hands. "We're actually here to fulfill your contract from the relative future. You see — you're a memory from the real Arthur Kirkland."

There was something in Kirkland that stopped at those words. "A — a memory? I'm a memory?" As if needing the confirmation, his hands felt himself up and down, patting his sweater vest and the sides of his trousers. "I — I don't _feel _like — that is to say, I don't remember — am I about to die?"

"Quite the contrary. I'd say you're about to live again.."

Kirkland finally broke a smile. The man looked as though he smiled less than his butler did, but the way the smile came over him seemed too natural, too effortless. All the creases in his skin lifted and his eyes crinkled and he seemed to lose twenty years in that single moment; Francis knew all at once that this was not a man he could leave to be jumped and robbed. Not because of Matthew's words, not because he felt any particular sympathy towards old people in general — but because there was this unlikeness in Kirkland that Francis had never seen in another human being before, and the unlikeness came with the stars in his eyes.

"You're right. Absolutely. Silly me. To live again —! What can I do for you tonight, gentlemen?"

"We want to ask if you have any other specific things you want us to change, or any requests you'd like to make. Anything at all that you missed in your letter. Your future counterpart has already given us the go-ahead on everything, but you're currently…well, compromised, so we can't be too sure," Matthew said.

Kirkland seemed to understand. "I only ask that you respect my privacy whenever possible."

"Of course," Francis said reassuringly. "We understand how intruding this business can be sometimes, but we guarantee you that we're one hundred percent professional about everything."

"And, also — it doesn't matter how big the wedding is, of course." Kirkland reddened noticeably, even in the dark. "So long as we do it, and live out the rest of our lives together in general happiness. I've always wanted two kids —" He struggled bravely to continue, but couldn't.

"It'll be done," Matthew said.

"And you two — you aren't?" Arthur's index finger waved between the two of them. "Adverse to my, my sexuality? No prejudice?"

"Mr. Kirkland, surely you must still be living in the past," Francis joked. "There is nothing about your sexuality to hold prejudice against."

Kirkland breathed out a sigh of relief. "I'm old," he said light-heartedly. "Back in my day, people weren't so kind. Please make sure that in the new memories — our new lives — that we aren't faced with that sort of hatred. And that our children grow up not knowing what hatred is at all."

Everything the old man had said so far seemed reasonably easy to do. There was still one thing missing. "We need an important item of yours," Francis said. "We use mementos in order to take bigger leaps back in time. For example, if that watch is something that you've owned in the past five years and you carry it around with you a lot, then we'll be able to use it to travel back in time up to five years. If you have anything to help us get started —"

Kirkland hesitated, before revealing a small war medallion around his neck. "I participated in the Vietnam war when I was about twenty-five years old," he explained, removing it and handing it to Matthew. "But this was given to me just a few years ago. Some things were lost in translation, and — well, I was discharged for loving another man."

They shook hands again (Matthew hugged Kirkland, much to his surprise) and Francis thought about his senior year of college which he'd spent entirely drunk and in bed with other men.

Those were wistful days — he'd still been young. Now he only saw a mirror replica of himself in the man standing three feet away from him.

"Ah, and we recommend that you go home now," Francis mentioned casually as he pulled another cigarette from his pocket. Matthew let go of Kirkland and gave him a wide, doe-eyed stare — something that said _I knew it. I knew all along that this is the person you are. _It was the sort of stare Francis had always dreamed the younger associates would give him on a regular basis; these days, they usually just looked at him with mild-mannered apathy and sometimes disgust. "We'll be able to time-travel safer when you're not walking about — it causes disruptions in the memory waves."

That probably didn't make any sense to Kirkland (and it didn't to Francis either), but the old man nodded anyway. "Sure thing. Yes. Right away. I'll be going now —" He shook Matthew's hand _again_ — "It was so nice meeting you two. Thank you so much. And — good luck."

Kirkland was a dozen feet away before Francis remembered what had been at the back of his mind for quite some time now. "Mr. Kirkland," he said. "Our reports say that you don't get out often. Just for curiosity's sake, what were you doing before we came?"

The old man never turned around. "I came to negotiate some things with this friend of mine. Oh, well. It doesn't matter anymore."

"Good night, Mr. Kirkland," Matthew called.

"Good night!"

When they were finally left alone, Matthew gave Francis a big hug. "_Oof_," Francis said good-naturedly, tousling the younger's hair.

"I should probably give you more credit next time," Matthew said, voice muffled by Francis' sweater.

"You probably should."

"My friends at Sigmund Corp. have a really low opinion of you. But I disagree with 'em."

That —

That didn't really make Francis feel better.

"Come on," he grumbled. "We have a lot of work to do."


	3. Eighty

Second stop - Age 80

(Arthur Kirkland has his second heart attack)

* * *

Matthew had grown up in Montreal. He played hockey — and was _extremely_ good at it. He was, in fact, so good that when he moved to America for college, he played for the varsity team (although he hadn't been allowed to try out until he was seventeen). The saddest thing that ever happened to him was when he broke his leg two months into his second season and it'd never really healed perfectly. Even today his breath still hitched every time he stepped down on that foot.

"And you?" Matthew asked him. "You never talk about yourself."

Francis didn't talk about himself because there was nothing to share. Nothing he particularly wanted to share, anyhow. "I've been working for Roderich for over a decade now," he said, shrugging, although Matthew probably already knew that. He flipped Kirkland's medallion over in his hands and scrubbed aimlessly at its surface. "Roderich is something like your average, uninteresting businessman — only with a two foot pole constantly in his ass."

"Is that an innuendo for something else?" Matthew asked, smiling. Francis liked his smile; it was chock full of honesty and humility and something else. "You know how he's married to Mrs. Héderváry? Everyone always talks about her like she'd make something of a good lay, but I doubt she'd want to sleep with them anyway."

Francis checked the hospital clock. He thought he knew where (or when) they were, and if he was not mistaken, Kirkland should be arriving any moment now. His files had said _heart attack_.

"Who's everyone?"

"Oh, you know."

Matthew probably didn't want to give any names away. Objectifying misogynists though they were.

They fiddled their thumbs for another few minutes more in complete silence; Matthew then taught Francis how to play chopsticks. Halfway through their sixth game Francis was so into it that he almost missed Kirkland being wheeled in on a stretcher, surrounded by three paramedics. The two stood up respectfully as the stretcher passed and then they followed them into the ER, invisible.

"Remember we're going in and out," he hissed at Matthew. "Grab a memento from him and then leave. No staying behind to offer helpful life advice, no contacting him to discuss world events, no touring his past. You got that?"

Matthew apparently didn't, because one of the nurses ran straight through his body and he jumped instead of nodding his head. "Hey," Francis said.

"I got it." Matthew laughed and did a little twirl right into the exact same nurse. "This is so cool!"

_Pay attention to me_, Francis almost snapped, before realizing that both their attentions should probably be on the old man wheezing his lungs out. They fell silent as they watched Kirkland from the corner of the room as the doctors tried to revitalize him.

It was the first time Francis really considered if Kirkland had any other family members. He tried swallowing around the knot in his throat but couldn't, so he decided to gag instead. Matthew beat him to it. The boy had gone from giddy to tragic-looking in seconds; he'd probably never seen anything like this, poor chap.

They waited until Kirkland was finally stabilized; the nurses left him by himself in another room. Later, the hospital might try to contact his relatives — and it wouldn't take long for them to realize he had none.

Francis placed the used war memento gently on Kirkland's chest. It was a memory from the future, so it would disappear after a while. They couldn't use the same memento twice, so he began removing the oldest artifact it looked like Kirkland had on him — a carefully knitted scarf. "Wait," Matthew called, stepping forwards. In seconds, he had turned on his visibility and interactivity with his watch, and was adjusting Kirkland's sheets.

"What're you doing?" Francis asked, appalled.

"What does it look like? I'm blatantly disobeying your orders."

Well, Francis could see that.

It took a few seconds for Francis to figure out that Matthew wasn't going anywhere soon, so he pulled up a chair and took out his phone and began reading his recently downloaded electronic version of _W Magazine_. It was just a job, he told himself. Nothing personal. And it didn't have to reflect who he was as a person — not unless he wanted it to.

Giving a shit about his client on anything more than a business level was _definitely _not his job.

"You're too caring for your own good, Williams," Francis grumbled.

Matthew smiled but ignored him.

When Kirkland woke up a few hours later, the first thing that came out of his mouth was "Alfred?"

"No," Matthew said hurriedly. "My name is Matthew. Can I do anything for you? Are you thirsty?"

Kirkland shook his head and lifted a trembling finger to poke Matthew's chest. "_Alfred_," he insisted with a solemn look in his eyes.

"_Matthew_." Matthew gently removed Kirkland's hand and placed it back on the bed. "I'm going to get one of the nurses for you. Francis, look after him!" And then he was out of the room, off to see through with his saint-like duties.

Kirkland's eyes flickered over to Francis, who'd turned on his visibility. It might have been a trick of the light, but when the old man's eyes made contact, it looked like they widened, just a bit, like the other was surprised to see him.

"That was definitely Alfred," Kirkland said calmly, as though he hadn't just suffered his second (was it second?) heart attack. "Trouble is, Alfred's been dead for some time now. And he sure didn't look like_ that_ when he left; he was well past his prime. Who the hell are you?"

"That was not Alfred, _mon ami_," Francis said, sighing, and putting away his phone. "I'm Francis. In reality, we are not actually here. We do not exist. We're just fragments of your imagination, scattered fly-aways from your disoriented mind trying to re-collect itself after suffering a traumatizing experience. Hallucinations. Personified ghosts from your sub-sub-conscience."

"Yeah, right."

A worn-out looking nurse entered the room with a glass of water and a harrowed grin slapped on his face. "How are you feeling, Mr. Kirkland?" he asked kindly. Francis felt sorry for the fellow; they were in the same boat, having to work late-night shifts.

"Good. Actually, I feel like I could run a marathon."

_Would you say you feel like you're being reborn? _Francis mused.

After the nurse tended to Kirkland, he turned a piercing glare at Francis and Matthew (who stood with hands folded behind him). "I don't believe you two were given permission to be in here."

"Oh, but we were," Francis said, before whipping out his _Sigmund Corp._ badge, turning it so that only the nurse could see it. The nurse blinked before leaving without another word. Francis was glad they were still in that point in time where his badge actually meant something; traveling another two decades or so back and taking out his badge would only earn him puzzled stares.

"So, what are you two, government spies or something?" Kirkland croaked from his bed. "What kind of sadistic bastards are you guys, messing with a poor old man's brain like that when he woke up right after suffering a heart attack? Hallucinations?"

Francis shrugged at Matthew, giving him a _I-have-no-idea-what-this-senile-man-is-talking-about_ look, but he didn't think that Matthew believed him for a second. The younger of the two excused himself to use the restroom, leaving just Francis and Kirkland alone once again.

"You could say that. Actually, we were just passing by when it looked like you were about to wake up," Francis responded. "We had to visit someone here in the hospital right now. "

"So go back to your call of duty. What're you sticking around with me for?" Kirkland gave Francis a squinty-eyed look, before his entire face turned red with embarrassment. "You're just here because no one else is. You feel sorry for me, that's why."

"Not at all," Francis said, raising his hands in mock surrender.

"You mean, you _wouldn't_ have visited a lonely old man if you noticed he had no other visitors? Asshole."

"What is wrong with you?" Francis snapped. He didn't want to be unnecessarily cruel to someone with as many wrinkles as Kirkland had but the other just kept on pushing all of Francis' wrong buttons. "Why are you so interrogative — and, and — what do you want from me?"

"Look, _Francis_, I don't need your pity. I need you to get your frog face the fuck out of my room right now before I call for security."

Francis stood up, cheeks ablaze. "I cannot believe a person can be so rebuking and pointlessly defensive as you are. I have caused you no harm. You have only called me names and sworn at me —"

"Security! Security!" Kirkland yowled at the top of his lungs.

Francis was out of the room in seconds. _Well, that escalated quickly_, he thought to himself bitterly as he marched down the hall, turning off his visibility just when two nurses ran past him into Kirkland's room. Kirkland had definitely been more accommodating when they'd talked just a few hours ago. The side of him Francis was seeing now was probably his true self — a nasty, brutish, ugly side that Francis was already beginning to loathe.

Matthew would find Francis ten minutes later with his head in his hands, seated in a plastic chair in the lobby. He would leave and come back with some coffee, black like the way Francis liked it. Francis would accept it graciously and drink it heatedly.

"I already hate our client," Francis complained to Matthew as the younger listened patiently by his side. "He is an unseemly, angry little British man who possesses absolutely zero manners or tolerance for other people. No wonder there was nobody by his bedside besides us."

"He might have a tragic back story for all we know," Matthew said, reservedly.

"I don't care if he was betrayed and murdered by his best friend in another life. It is no excuse not to treat other people with common courtesy and like a human being."

"Want me to go talk to him?"

"Please! You seem to have better luck with him. Except for the fact that he thinks you're, you know, his old lover whom he wants to marry so much he hired us to change his entire life for him."

"Time has a funny way of doing things to people, shattering and bringing them back to familiar faces and places they once loved. I don't mind that he mistakes me for someone else. I think it's a lapse I can overlook."

Of course that was something the understanding, talented prodigy Matthew Williams would say. Francis smiled, proud. "Go on, then."

"Well, you should come with me," Matthew said. "But turn off your visibility. We might end up learning interesting things from our client."

It turned out that phenom Matthew Williams was not only academically gifted, but exceptionally social when he wanted to be. Within minutes he and Kirkland were chatting away like old friends, Kirkland having apologized for misplacing Matthew's face, and Francis suspected more than ever that Kirkland really was just a lonely guy on the inside who simply wanted someone to share experiences with.

He mainly shared experiences about Alfred.

When he did, his entire face would light up. Francis watched him closely, from the way his wrinkles would gather around his eyes and the way their pale greyness seemed to light up with a hint of a gorgeous green. Francis was as intrigued by Kirkland as Matthew was; he was drawn to the stories that fell from Kirkland's lips and the poetry he waxed and the invisible lines he drew in the air with his hands. Maybe it was sad that Kirkland would lose these memories. And maybe it wasn't so sad at all.

"I always believed that everyone has a hole to fill in their lives," Kirkland told Matthew. "And Alfred was perfectly attuned to fill mine. The stars aligned to make him."

_The stars aligned to make him_. It was something only a pretentious, still-in-love fool would say in this day and age. Then again, Kirkland wasn't really from this day and age. Francis suspected that Kirkland lived and breathed in his past; the moment Alfred had left the world, a part of him had died too. There was no Kirkland of the present except to live long enough to wait for the invention of Sigmund Corp. and the miracle of a new existence.

"I've never been in love myself, Mr. Kirkland," Matthew said, laughing along with Kirkland. "There was this girl I used to kiss in the janitor's closet after class. I thought I would have done anything for her. And you know what? I probably would have, if she'd asked."

"And the man you were with? Do you think he's ever been in love?"

Francis froze. Matthew did, too, well aware that Francis was in the very room with them, watching on silently.

"Francis doesn't like to talk about himself. I don't know anything about him, actually."

"Do you know why I asked him to leave my room, Matthew?"

Francis thought about how Kirkland had barely asked him to leave — more like hit him over the head with it and threatened him until he ran out.

"Because he's those kind of men I can't stand. Ostentatious, arrogant, insensitive. Fake."

Each word struck Francis like a blow in the chest, and his fingers wavered dangerously over the 'visible' button on his watch. They wavered. He wanted to defend himself. But they didn't meet their intended goal, because Kirkland continued.

"Because I've lived a long life and I've _met_ men like him. I used to be that kind of man, myself.

"And I know how hard it is to break out of a shell when you're firmly clasped inside it."

"Thank you, Mr. Kirkland," Matthew stuttered, unsure of what to say. It was time to move on. He muttered a quick something about having to leave, rising to shake the other's hand.

Francis' heart was also stuttering. He'd had many clients in his decade-long experience at Sigmund, but there were none who could have lit quite the same sort of flame in his chest the way Kirkland did just then.

"Please," Kirkland said, smiling. "Call me Arthur."

Arthur suddenly made Francis feel nostalgic for a something that wasn't there yet.


End file.
